[1] Unfinished.
[2] Concluded with a theme akin to Lizards.
[3] Various duets among the bandmembers; vampire children references.
[4] Members of Son Seals Band.

Llama was unfinished and featured a long, atypical jam that wove into Velvet Sea. The jam after Velvet Sea concluded with a theme akin to Lizards. Prior to the start of the second set, Trey said that in France they love Jimi Hendrix and Danny Bonnaduce, explaining "that's why I'm here," and that he started his career as the Partridge Family's bass player. Trey subsequently quoted Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque, remarked that the crowd was too young for that and that they didn't see the Partridge Family, but that the crowd knew it when they played Hanson the other night (see 7/6/97). Prior to 2001, Trey said they called Fish "The Orchestral Greasy Troll," prompting some impromptu singing. Trey teased Super Bad and The Star Spangled Banner in 2001. Ya Mar featured various duets by the bandmembers, contained Magilla and St. Thomas teases, and lyrics referencing "vampire children." Take Me to the River (first since November 21, 1995, or 126 shows) was unfinished. Funky Bitch featured a guest appearance by members of the Son Seals Band and teases of Take Me to the River and Bathtub Gin by the trumpet player.

Show Reviews

This is the textbook definition of an underrated great show. Essentially the entire European summer tour has been shunted into the background of the almighty Amsterdam shows (and not totally without cause); still, there are some damn fine highlights outside those shows, mainly brought on through Phish playing in smaller venues and being able to take a few more risks. This, the ostensible tour closer (I don't think a festival show counts as such), is probably the finest non-Paradiso show of the tour.

Set 1 starts in standard fashion until we get to Gin (kudos to @westbrook for getting this added to the chart), which quickly begins grinding down in tempo and enters a wild music-on-helium loop space, then (at Trey's prodding) moves into a funky jam that shows the group showing off its budding minimalist chops (Fish's beat is a bit more plodding than I'd like). This might not be as strong as what would come in the fall, but it's damn exciting all the same, and the band seems clearly chuffed with this jamming style (Trey's excited "oh!"s at the end of every bar is great).

And then, just as Page starts going to the synthesizer, Trey starts playing the main Gin theme again, and we get a crazy funk version of the usual Gin jam. The band then leads themselves into the usual Gin jam, which slows down and morphs into a brief ambient interlude, a preview not so much of the fall tour as of the '98 and '99 sound, then segues into Llama, which also gets its own funky and weird jam (Page leans on the synth even harder here), before smoothing out and leading into Velvet Sea. The jam afterwards is fun, if not particularly essential, and Olivia's Pool is cool by dint of how rare it is. So that's the first set, right there.

Set 2 opens up with 2001, always a damn good start in the late 90s, and this version, if not as tight a dance-floor machine as it would become by the hiatus, still packs a nice wallop, with Page in particular doing fine work both on the synth and the organ (and Trey tossing in James Brown teases to show he means business). Julius comes next, and it's Julius, but it segues nicely into Magilla. Next comes Ya Mar, with its "vampire child" references, and it's a really frisky version that allows everybody to get at least one chance to shine (thrilling the small, intimate crowd), before very neatly segueing into Ghost. This Ghost has some extra stank on it by dint of the tempo of the previous jam, and its jam picks up steam before a *tremendous* segue into Take Me To The River, which turns into a stop-and-start grimy jam that bumps and grinds and crawls across the floor (Trey's guitar tone here is particularly nasty), then enters loop-land as the jam goes molasses-slow, before Trey starts shouting "Take me to the river!" and the jam comes to a glorious close. Funky Bitch, with the amusing trumpet teases, is a fun encore.

This has always been a hidden jewel in a year with no shortage of treasures, mainly due to the AUD of the show being so rough, but the new @KernelForbin remaster makes the show totally worth seeking out. This is Phish at their funkiest, raunchiest, and most fun; in other words, this is a damn party, and we all love Phish parties, so what's stopping you?

This show has so much to offer, it makes a review difficult, as I only can enumerate facts and stats. However, the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts, and although this is a exercise in futility, my review follows:

The Tunes:

A glance at the setlist is admittedly underwhelming. There are only two or three bread and butter jam tunes present, and not a single intricate multi-beast composition. Yes, Bathtub is a wicked 20 minute journey, but the brilliance of this show lies in the previously unexplored corners of the Phish cannon.

Set I: Llama in the first set clocks in over 12 minutes, a fantastic Type II jam that devolves into Velvet Sea. The Lizards jam that follows Sea is similar to how Rift's jam was altered for The Curtain With. Also, personally, I always prefer Olivia's Pool to Shafty.

Set II: Comprised of two thick tasty musical chunks. The first is dominated by the tight funky dance party in 2001>Julius, while the second chunk is unbridled rock after the calypso goofyness in Ya Mar. After a fast and snappy Ghost heads toward Type II, Take Me To The River comes on with a ten minute Trey tour-de-force. He is screaming lyrics, playing hard and loud, and loving every minute of it. The weak encore is redeemed by horns and sweet teases.

The Banter:

Trey is truly Chatty Cathy this night. It's as though Brad Sands is stationed behind Trey's rig, and repeatedly pulling the string in the middle of his back. He is in turns nostalgic, whimsical, faux chastising, and always has a smile in his voice. They are reveling in the intimate atmosphere of these European shows, and it takes 3:30+ for the banter to end and 2001 to start. This show could have happened at Nectar's, home of the world famous Orchestral Greasy Troll.

The Verdict:

With both sets minus the encore clocking in barely over two hours, this show is not one to fall prey to dead spots and bathroom tunes. The show opener is weak, but the rest of the show flows from one musical emotion to another without any real breaks. The band and fans are directly feeding each other, and it's as though crowd participation was mandatory this night.

While the poor quality audio currently in circulation has done this show no favors, those who have tasted it understand, and keep coming back for more.

How had I not heard about this show before today? I found it myself by brute force -- I've listened to every show on this tour up to this point, so it was just a matter of time. Onto my penultimate review of Europe '97:

Dogs Stole Things has only been played twice as a show opener: this show, and Tahoe N2 15 years later. I was at the latter show... but enough about me. Until I listened to Europe '97, I thought of LxL primarily as a second set song, and if in the first set, a late or closing tune -- but it gets the early treatment repeatedly on this tour. By this point, 18 of 19 shows deep on this tour, Fishman has the drumming *down*. There isn't anything too special about this rendition, but being able to nail a song is typically an important prerequisite to it becoming a jam vehicle (see Piper later in the year). We get another early Ginseng, which though in the same position as the last show (I3), works much better here, coming off of some well-played tunes rather than a train wreck and a polarizing two chord droner. Anyway... the Gin that pops up next is freaking amazing! After what seems like relatively standard Gin-jamming (considering it's already a "big Gin"), around the 13 minute mark, the Gin evaporates and the band enters '97-funk-laden-Gin-territory. And it rules for the next 8+ minutes before kicking into Llama. Have I ever told you how much I love Llama? Well this one freaking rules, and despite it never technically finishing and instead Wading right into the Velvet Sea, it goes onto some almost Wormtown-like jamming before the segue. Weird stuff... and they keep it up -- busting out a random jam that basically ends in the Lizards jam, and then they play the not-quite-as-rare-as-its-successor, Olivia's Pool (pre-Shafty: same lyrics, completely different music).

The second frame starts up with some interesting banter about the Partridge Family, Hanson, and Fishman the Greasy Troll, before kicking into 2001. This one's mellow, kind of like the Melt from the previous night, but has some nice albeit repetition-based funk from Trey et al. Julius takes things up another notch, and this seems like a good slot for it actually. Julius peters out before segueing smoothly into a slowed-down Magilla that keeps the jazzy / swing mood rolling along. Ya Mar is up next and this one has some cool duets between band members "Hi-hat and Clavinet!"; "Everybody foot stomping!". While fun, there's nothing too deep here, but that all changes in the 4th quarter. First off all, Ya Mar doesn't finish normally -- well it *seems* to end in its typical fashion, but it starts back up after a brief pause, and switches into a minor key jam which is quickly understood to be Ghost! This is almost a Ya Mar / Ghost hybrid at the beginning, with Fish playing a calypso beat behind a sped-up Ghost. Ghost eventually sheds all traces of Ya Mar before organically segueing right on into "Take Me to the River". While "TMttR" does get a verse or so worth of vocals, it quickly dissipates into a spacey prototypical '97 jam. Trey starts up the siren loops, and Fishman drops out for a bit so the three melodic players can circle around each other. This is far out stuff, and it sounds awesome! Around the 6 minute mark, Trey starts them on a new groove path which brings Fishman back into the mix, and leads to a vocal reprisal of the song title that carries on for the rest of the tune over the repetitive little groove. It's a nice exclamation point on the set for sure. The encore is fun and features another (near-)full-band guest appearance, and funny enough, when I wrote a review for the previous show I said the following:

"this is the only time I can think of that a *guest* has dropped a tease during a *Phish* tune. If you know of another instance, PM me."

Coincidentally that happens in this show (the very next night!) when Son Seals's trumpet player drops a few Gin teases in the Funky Bitch encore! Good stuff. This show has some interesting far-out jams, some great segues, covers a bunch of genres, and has some very good playing across the board. Definitely one of the better shows from this tour.

This show - a tried-and-true, through-and-through favorite of mine - gets my official endorsement for a LivePhish release! The smoking Gin dissolves into a funk-affair, equipped with Trey shouting to the rhythm of his funk guitar chords. It offers a preview of the US Summer Tour Opening Gin hoedown in Virginia Beach the following month.

I have come to realize, after listening to this tour in it's entirety that the guys had a very different approach to a lot of these shows. First and foremost was injecting new songs into the air and feeling them out live, shuffling them around, and learning about them. But another big thing I've noticed (especially towards the end) is that a lot of these shows are total experiments. Shows like 6/25, the famous 7/2 Wormtown show, and this show are some of the most bizarre shows I've ever heard. But out of those 3 named they are all utterly fantastic shows. I guess what I'm getting at is this tour was kind of the ultimate warmup for the year. Get out the new and rough songs and shake off some of the rust. Screw around with your creativity with setlists. These are things that I believe set the tone for the heights of the summer tour. And of course the most famous tour of all the 1997 Fall Tour.

They start out with some new tunes that are very tightly played (because they play them every night) but things really kick off when Gin shows up. The jam starts out pretty vicious. It simmers into a nice funky jam with the siren in the background. The jam itself is pretty straightforward compared to the weirdness to come. Llama itself is absolutely solid and inspired. It jumps into a fast paced funk jam with Mike smacking the crap out of the bass. And it just goes further and further down the Rabbit hole. The jam is fantastic and just so out there. It goes perfectly into Wading. The Llama -> Jam > Wading sequence already took place a few days previous in Amsterdam so it's curious to see it again. No complaints both sequences are fantastic! The set gets even more bizarre with the Lizards theme jam which is also top notch and out of left field. Likely one of the most experimental 1st sets they've ever played. And it totally paid off.

2001 features a lot of fun banter at the beginning. Julius is very well played an stretched out with some great work by Trey. The segue into Magilla is just fantastic, and as usual they nail it. Yamar has some hilarious vampire banter from Trey and is just an extremely fun version. The segue into Ghost is really great and it features a very fluid nice rocking jam. The experimentation doesn't end quite yet. Take me to the River comes out of nowhere. And let me tell you it is weird as hell too. Very very experimental jam.

This is an interesting show. It gets 5 stars from me, but not for the usual reasons. Normally a 5-star show is one with several big exploratory jams for instance, or a uniquely themed set. What we have here instead is many shorter jams that are nonetheless packed with amazing and fun moments. Lots of banter, catchy funk riffs, unusual segues, and short bursts of spacy type II jamming. There's never a dull moment or boring song. Fishman also shines and keeps changing up the rhythms. I recommend this one.

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